Summer 2017
Demons, Diaspora & Magic
Online Poetry Workshop
Instructor: Ariana Brown
6 weeks: July 1st - August 12th
Class size: 6 poets
Tuition: $150
REGISTRATION OPENS ON JUNE 15TH
This workshop is designed for oppressed communities to write about their oppressions as demons, charting a journey of healing from beginning to end. We will examine the use of history in poetry, allowing our demons, ancestors, and many selves to converse. What violences must be named? & how did they come to be? What stories/magic/medicine have forgotten, & what can be recovered? This course demands the poet return for whatever pieces of themselves have been left behind due to colonial/neocolonial or other oppressive processes in order to witness a possible future.
Students will meet individually with Ariana for 6 weekly sessions and 1 group session. The course will be conducted via Google Hangouts. By enrolling in this course, students agree to refrain from smoking, consuming alcohol or other drugs, and using racial slurs during class. Students agree to keep up with the light homework load and come to class prepared to write, discuss, and work.
Ariana believes in creating oppression-free spaces for marginalized individuals to claim as their own. Therefore, each course will be an oppression-free space. This means Ariana promises to:
• call out students for engaging in oppressive language and behavior
• refrain from engaging in oppressive language and behavior
• listen and offer support
• graciously accept being called out and work to improve if she makes a mistake
• craft a curriculum that centers the work of queer and genderqueer people of color, especially women, especially black and indigenous women
• respect the pain each student carries
*Please note that course requires a laptop computer, Internet connection, and working email address.
Please email us at workshops@kwelijournal.org if you have any questions or concerns.
ABOUT ARIANA
Ariana Brown is an Afromexicana poet from San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies from UT Austin. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and a 2014 collegiate national poetry slam champion. An alum of Brave New Voices, Ariana's work has been featured in PBS, Huffington Post, Blavity, For Harriet, and Remezcla. Ariana, who has been dubbed a "part-time curandera," has performed across the U.S. at venues such as the San Antonio Guadalupe Theater, University of California - Santa Cruz, Tucson Poetry Festival, and the San Francisco Opera Theatre. When she is not onstage, she is probably eating an avocado, listening to the Kumbia Kings, or validating black girl rage in all its miraculous forms. Her work is published in Huizache, Rattle, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets from Arte Público Press. She is currently earning an MFA in Poetry at the University of Pittsburgh. Learn more about Ariana at www.arianabrown.com
TESTIMONIALS for “DEMONS, DIASPORA & MAGIC”
"The course forced me to go through the healing process and challenged me to articulate myself at each stage of the process. This led to more authenticity in my work." - Jasmine B.
"To be honest, I've paid more for a single session with a therapist, which required me to do a fraction of the personal excavation and offered much less guidance in the process, so..." - Lydia C.
"That this work is necessary. That the stories are what carry us. That the process is more invaluable than the results. That my demons are not immortal." - Ed M., in response to "What was the most important thing you learned in the class?"
"I'm always honest in my writing, but the workshop helped me to be more conscious in translating the stories in my breath and bones from my ancestors to the page." - Ebony S.
